


Please Hold

by Rapscallion



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: I can't decide if it is plausible or just crack, M/M, Pre-Slash, obviously Vincent reads poetry all the time shh, silliness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:32:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rapscallion/pseuds/Rapscallion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vincent takes it upon himself to help out with one of Tifa's problems, then Cid happens and fluffy silliness soon follows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: I'm sure that this probably comes across as OOC to some degree, which is why I considered labeling it as crack. Then again, my Vincent has always been kind of a prankster, so maybe it just falls under reasonable interpretation? You guys decide, just be warned that there is not a shred of seriousness in this work. It's also one of the shortest things I've ever posted D: *hides in corner*

Tifa's Seventh Heaven probably offered the most diversity in any private business Vincent had ever encountered. Some days he thought that if she put her mind to it, she could single-handedly run something as big as the ShinRa Electric Power Company.

Luckily for the planet, Tifa's mind was stuck on smaller details, like Denzel and Marlene and Cloud, keeping her patrons happy and Cloud's clients in line. And now...keeping Vincent employed.

It had been a joke. Vincent had dropped by to visit Cloud one day, predictably at a time when the man had been absent, and Tifa had said something about switching on the hold music while he waited. Vincent had frowned, thinking that she was being literal, and had informed her that if there was a hold music mechanism on their line, it was broken. He knew. He had never encountered anything more than dull buzzing.

Tifa had laughed at him and said that maybe they should make Vincent the hold music. "You've got one of those voices people can't help but want to listen to," she'd told him, and then Cloud had come in to distract Vincent from his baffled state.

The next time he visited, he shot Tifa an impish look and picked up the ringing phone before she could reach it. "Your party is unavailable at the moment," he'd said. "Please enjoy this brief distraction while you hold."

That had ended in the shouting of cursing and expletives, followed by the line going dead. Vincent might have roared with laughter had he been a younger man, but the wide smile on his face seemed to be close enough to set off Tifa and Marlene. 

"Cid or Barret?" Tifa asked, looking at the way Vincent was still holding the speaker slightly away from his ear.

"Cid," Vincent said, mouth twitching against laughter as he watched Tifa and Marlene giggle. 

"He'll call back."

"I'm sure he will."

Cid had, and Vincent had let that one slide, but the next time the phone rang, Tifa actually had been busy, and when she'd looked to Vincent for help, Vincent had swiped Marlene's homework and read off the poems she'd been dissecting over the phone until Tifa could take the call.

The next thing he knew, she was calling him saying that people were asking after the phone poet, and soon after that, he was there once a week just to answer phones. Fridays were especially busy, she said, and now that Marlene was in school she needed to focus on that more than helping out around the place.

Vincent ended up investing in a book of real poetry, and he'd never heard most of them before, so it was almost like an educational experience for him, too, when he welcomed the caller and began to read from wherever he'd left off at the last call.

Most of them insisted hearing out the poem before being transferred to Tifa. It was bewildering, but also sort of flattering.

Every Friday, someone would call and say nothing at all, just grunt in acknowledgement to Vincent's greeting and sit there as silently as possible on the other end of the line. The person usually hung up as soon as Vincent was ready to send the call to Tifa, but it still didn't take Vincent long to piece it together.

The next week, when that call came, Vincent greeted him. "Cid."

That was all he got out before the man hung up, muttered curses just barely audible as he did.

Shera called in his place the next week. Vincent had to strain to remember her voice, but he immediately knew what was happening when the familiar sound of Cid's quiet breathing replaced her voice.  
It went on a few more weeks, Cid using Shera or any other friend to place the call for him. Vincent even knew when to expect the call, because it came at nearly the same time each week. He'd created a special list of Cid poems just for the occasion.

Then came the week when Cid apparently couldn't find anyone to do the dirty work for him. He didn't even try his usual cover.

"Hello. Your party is temporarily unavailable. Please enjoy while you ho--"

"Vincent? Goddammit, what the hell is this!?" Cid asked, but Vincent didn't believe him. "Just put Tifa on the phone."

"She's busy, Cid. Now quit your fussing and listen to this one. I picked it out for you."

He heard Cid splutter, but the man didn't hang up, and Vincent went right on reading about the bird who traveled the world but always came home to roost in the same place each year, looking for his friends and the familiar sights of home wherever he went, and only being really content when surrounded by them.

"I don't get it," Cid complained, his voice a little rough. "Gimme Tifa."

Vincent did.

That went on several more weeks, though Cid quickly returned to his quiet grunts and his Shera cover.

Vincent decided to step it up. He stopped with the poetic things, and the next time Cid called, he only exaggerated the sounds of his own breathing in response.

"Goddamn, Vince, what're ya doin'!? I mean, goddammit." Then the call was over, and Vincent did roar with laughter this time. 

"What's so funny?" Tifa asked, leaning against the bar and wiping down the last of the glasses from the lunch rush.

"If you paid me, I could probably claim harrassment."

"Cid again, huh?" She tilted her head, looking thoughtful and setting the clean glass on the rack with the others.

"Mm."

"He's too funny. He used to come in once or twice a month. I'd almost say he's avoiding you."

"He's easy to embarrass for someone so gruff." Cid had always had a little bit of the sensitive to him, but it was easy to forget when he had his tough, best pilot in the world, planet's savior persona placed up front.

"I think I have a plan," Tifa said, pushing away from the bar. She took the phone and made a quick phone call of her own. "Shera? Hi. We haven't seen Cid in a while, and I cleaned out the basement and found some things of his. We unloaded so much stuff from the Highwind when he came by after we opened up-- uh-huh. Yeah, that'd be great. I'm not sure he'd like me handing it out to anyone else. Oh, nothing bad. It's just...you know how he is. Right." She laughed. "OK, thanks Shera. Bye-bye."

Tifa turned back to Vincent, smug smile in place and hands on her hips. "He'll be here Tuesday."

Vincent blinked. He wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do with that. "That's...good?"

Tifa sighed. "Be here. Or are you just as bad as he is?"

Vincent turned away as he felt color beginning to rise to his cheeks. "I am not."

"Oh my god, are you pouting? Cloud'll be sorry he missed this. Anyway, be here and deal with the Cid thing. You owe me this. You lost me a regular customer."

"Twice a month?" Vincent asked, looking at her again so she could see his raised eyebrow.

"All right. Semi-regular. Anyway, he's my friend! I miss having him around. He makes things pretty lively in here."

Vincent could believe that, and he could also believe that Tifa would be very sore with him if he didn't turn up.

So he did, striding into the bar to find Cid leaned against it, laughing. It was a pleasant sound, and Vincent hung back at first just to watch the man. It had been too long since they'd seen each other. The journey before Meteorfall had brought them all closer than Vincent had ever been to other people, and Cid in particular had stuck out for him.

He liked the easy, sure way the man did everything, the lines of his body, the warm tone of his skin, the blue of his expressive eyes. Those eyes turned on him a few minutes later, and Cid froze, more stiff and tense at the sight of Vincent than he'd ever been in a battle against even the worst of what the planet had to offer.

"Thought you w're only here Fridays," Cid grunted, folding his arms and looking anywhere but at Vincent's face.

At least he wasn't pretending not to know at all. "I heard you were coming by. I didn't want to pass up the chance to see you."

Cid's eyes widened as he spluttered characteristically, and Vincent might have kissed him then just to see what happened if not for the avoidance he was picking up from the man. 

"Besides, I had an errand in Rocket Town. I thought you might fly me back."

"I drove," Cid said, looking a little put out. Because he didn't want to take Vincent, or because he thought now Vincent wouldn't go with him? It was hard to say. "Besides, can't you go wherever you want any time?"

"That's an awfully long drive to make alone," Vincent said. "And sometimes it's worth taking a little more time than necessary to do something, if you get to do it with good company."

"Thought you liked bein' on yer own."

"I've gotten used to being on my own," Vincent said. "There's a difference."

Cid's eyes reacted to that, too, some surprise and some sadness, and Vincent knew he'd won the man over this time. "You come with me, then. We'll take a hell of a long time gettin' where we're goin'. That's what y'do when y'have the best comp'ny, right?" Cid asked, all grin and bravado now as he pointed to himself with both thumbs.

"That's right," Vincent said, inclining his head and smiling. 

"Good. Now let's get goin'," Cid said, snagging Vincent around the waist and tugging him toward the door.

"What about the things in the basement?"

"I'll come back for 'em. We got things t'talk about, me an' you, an' places t'be gettin' to. What's all this poem bullshit now? You got a little explainin' t'do. You tryin'a say somethin' about me, all that sappy crap y'been spoutin' at me?"

"But Cid, you've only called twice," Vincent said, feigning innocence in his voice and expression.

"Ahh, shuddup, Vincent, don't start playin' dumb now!" Cid said, stopping in his walk and tugging Vincent's hair until his lips were pressed to Cid's. "You tryin'a make me insecure? Gonna have me thinkin' I imagined all that," Cid complained when he pulled away, and his words were stern but his gaze uncertain, and Vincent soothed it away with a second kiss.

"I have no doubt that you've got an active imagination, but you didn't need it this time. You're just easy, Chief," he teased, happily allowing Cid to pull him a little closer.

"Now what're ya goin' on about?" Cid complained, narrowing his eyes and jabbing Vincent with a knuckle.

"Heavy breathing calls and getting other people to call for you so you could listen? You're the only one who'd think of something like that. Except me, maybe."

Cid started to laugh, then stopped and whirled around to stare at Vincent. "You been callin' the shop just to hear my voice? That you callin' every Thursday?"

"There's that imagination again," Vincent said lightly, walking right on past him and smiling to himself as Cid hurried to catch up, mouth running the whole time.


End file.
